


Itch

by miera



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miera/pseuds/miera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hadn't thought blue could burn like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Itch

**Author's Note:**

> Let's face it, Zuko is a 16/17 year old boy. Some things are impossible to control.

The air near the sea was humid. Zuko hadn't missed the way it clung to his skin. He hadn't wanted to ever come back to this place, or this house, but it was their best hiding place right now. Even if he felt like he'd already sweated completely through the thin sheet spread underneath him, and it wasn't even midnight.

Still, he shouldn't complain. They were safe for the moment. Aang was making progress with his firebending. And Katara had forgiven him. It was a relief not to fear anything he said would be met with a vicious verbal attack, not to mention being able to go to bed without wondering if she'd drown him in his sleep.

Well, he didn't think Katara would do that to someone. It would be too dishonorable. If she wanted to take him down, she'd challenge him directly.

He'd faced her twice before and only just held his own. He wondered, now that the source of his firebending had shifted, if another fight would yield the same results. Maybe he should suggest they try sparring, just for practice? Though he'd rather live in ignorance than ever have to fight her – really fight her – again.

Even if he could still remember how full of fire her blue eyes could be when she was in the middle of combat. He hadn't thought blue could burn like that.

She stared down at him now from the doorway, but the intensity in her eyes wasn't the malevolent glaring he'd been subjected to so recently, and it wasn't the fury of mortal combat. It was... different, and it sent a shiver down his spine.

He couldn't keep his own eyes from drifting down either. The first time he'd seen Katara in her "Fire Nation camouflage," as Sokka called it, Zuko had immediately invented a chore to go do before his reaction could be noticed. Water Tribe clothing left very little skin exposed, for obvious reasons. It was warmer here in the Fire Nation. His first sight of Katara's skin, exposed by the red material of her top, had made his hands itch. Now his whole body itched, watching her walk towards his bed.

He whispered her name but she shushed him, climbing onto the bed and straddling him. His hands went to her hips automatically, while he stared up at her in confusion.

She took advantage of the fact that his mouth was hanging open to lean down and kiss him. The shock of it rippled down to his toes. This wasn't like kissing Mai. This wasn't sweet and gentle, and it wasn't anywhere in the realm of chaste. Katara's tongue slipped into his mouth and she sucked on his lip and despite the wrongness of all of this, hunger ignited inside of him. Zuko kissed her back, probably clumsily, but she didn't stop.

His hands moved up of their own accord, finding the warm skin of her abdomen. It was damp under his thumbs as he touched her. His body reacted to the kiss, to her skin, to feeling her on top of him, and it was strange that he felt no shame, but she felt too good for him to stop and think. When her lips drew back and she kissed him more lightly, teasing him – he could feel the way her lips curved into a smile – he buried one hand in her hair and dragged her mouth back against his. This time she yielded and it was his tongue that pushed into her mouth, tasting her and controlling the kiss.

His other hand slid around her body. He couldn't get enough of the smooth skin under his fingers, and he felt her tremble at his light touch against her spine.

Before he could revel in the victory, she moved, rocking her hips against his. Zuko squeezed his eyes shut. She felt _so good_. He could feel her heat, where their bodies were meeting, grinding against each other. He broke the kiss and groaned out her name again, and got another "Shhh" for his slip. Suddenly he wanted to make her talk, make her break.

He looked up into the huge blue eyes that were just inches away from his. At another time, in other circumstances, he might recoil from her scrutiny, fearing what she was seeing or thinking of him, but now he stared back. His hand slid down her neck, over her bare shoulder. His fingers dipped into the valley below her collarbone, drawing another shiver from her. His palm continued down the front of her body. He forgot to ask for permission, didn't even think she might object and she didn't. She arched into his hand, shoving her strong body down harder against his groin and whiteness encroached on his vision as need coiled low in his belly. Energy flowed to his palm, heat sparking there involuntarily. He managed to pull it back before he lost control and burned her, but from the way she was moaning, it seemed the sensation was pleasurable.

"Say it," he murmured through gritted teeth. He could feel the dampness of the fabric between her legs where he was rolling his hips up to meet her. Her eyes fluttered shut as she tensed. "_Katara_," his voice pleaded in spite of himself.

Her whole body shuddered and the feeling of her writhing like that made him lose control, but even in the rush of his release, he could have sworn he heard Katara gasp out his name.

He collapsed limply against the soaking wet sheet and startled when he got a mouth full of the thin pillow. It took a moment for the disorientation to fade and Zuko to realize he was lying on his stomach in his bed.

Alone.

He pushed himself up on his arms and looked down. The bed was a mess, in more ways than one. So were his trousers.

He fell onto his side and grunted. His body was pleasantly sore and all he wanted was to curl up and sleep, but with the bed in this state, that wasn't going to be terribly comfortable.

He hadn't had one of these dreams in a while, and hadn't had one about Katara for months. He'd first dreamt of her this way after he captured her with the pirates. The dreams had resurfaced after their fights at the North Pole. At the time he'd assumed his own mind was punishing him for his humiliating defeat at the hands of a Water Tribe peasant girl by consuming him with desire for her in his sleep.

The memory of her hurt face in Ba Sing Se had driven Katara out of his more pleasant dreams and into his nightmares.

Part of him wondered if the dreams coming back was really a good thing. After all, the last time this had happened, Zuko hadn't had to look Katara in the eye the next morning. And Uncle Iroh had been very good about pretending not to hear things, a necessary skill for a man traveling with a temperamental adolescent boy.

Zuko had a wild moment of panic before deciding there was no way Toph could've sensed any of this. Nobody would know, assuming he could figure out a way to get the sheet and his clothes clean without anyone seeing it.

And assuming it didn't happen again.

Of course, if they ever found out, he'd probably be praying Sokka or Aang got to him before Katara did. She'd slice him into tiny pieces and feed his remains to hog monkeys.

He put an arm over his eyes and thought perhaps tomorrow he should stay away from Katara, just in case.


End file.
